"In the meanwhile we went to pass the summer away from home. In this retirement our good Lord vouchsafed to speak to my heart and inspire me with such a lively sorrow for my sins that I often passed part of the night in weeping. I watered my couch with tears, and judging myself unworthy to sleep on a bed, I cast myself on the ground, and used to lie there until fatigue obliged me to return to my pillow. At the end of three months we went back to St. Petersburg, and I there learned that a cousin of mine [Footnote 71] had become a convert. I was deeply pained. I accused the Jesuits of being the cause of the step, and had hard work not to yield to my old hatred of them. I avoided speaking with my cousin alone, because I did not want to receive the confidence which I knew she was anxious to give me. But at last, to my great regret, I had to listen to her. When she had told me what I was so unwilling to know, I burst into tears, and replied:
[Footnote 71: The lady here mentioned was the mother of Monseigneur de Ségur. ]
"'If you believe that the Catholic religion is the true one, you were right to embrace it; but I do not understand how you could believe it.'
"'Oh,' said she, 'if you would only read something that my mother [Footnote 72] has written on the Greek schism and the truth of the Catholic Church, you would be persuaded as I was.'
[Footnote 72: The Countess Rostopchine, whom Madame de Staël mentions with so much praise in her Dix années d'exil. ]
"'You may send me whatever you wish,' I answered, 'but you may be certain that it will not affect me. I am too firmly convinced that truth lives in the Greek Church.'
"I went home in great distress of mind. For the first time in four years I omitted to repeat my vow before going to bed; it seemed to me rash. I retired, but God would not let me sleep; he filled my mind with salutary thoughts. 'I must examine this matter,' said I, 'it is certainly worth the [{308}] trouble; it is something of too much consequence to be deceived about.' I thought over all that I knew about the Catholic faith, and at that moment God opened my eyes. I saw as clear as day that hitherto I had been in the wrong, and the truth was to be found only in the Catholic Church. 'It is our pride,' I exclaimed, 'which prevents our acknowledging the supremacy of the Pope: to-morrow I will embrace the truth. Yet how can I? And my vow? Ah, but the vow is null; it can be no obstacle to the fulfilment of my resolution. If I had taken an oath to commit a murder, the oath would have been a sin, and to fulfil it would be another. I will not commit the second sin. I will not put off being a Catholic beyond to-morrow.'
"I waited impatiently for day that I might read my aunt's little treatise,—not because I needed arguments to convince me, but I wanted to have it to say that I had read something. At day-break I wrote to my cousin these words: 'Send me the manuscript, pray for me, and hope.' I read it quickly; it consisted of not more than thirty pages. I found in it all that I had said to myself during the night. I hesitated no longer, but hastened to my mother, declared myself a Catholic, and begged her to send for Father Rozaven. He came the same morning. He was not a little surprised at the unexpected intelligence, and asked me if I was ready to suffer persecution, even death itself, if need were, for the love of the religion which I was going to embrace. My blood froze in my veins, but I answered: 'I hope everything from the grace of God.' The good father doubted no longer the sincerity of my conversion, and promised to hear my confession the next day but one, that is, the 18th of October. It was during the night of the 15th and 16th of October, 1815, that God spoke for me the words fiat lux."
After she had been received into the Church, Father Rozaven said to her: "I wish to establish in your heart a great love of God which shall manifest itself not by fine sentiments but by practical results, and shall lead you to fulfil with zeal and courage all your duties without exception. I want you to strive ardently to acquire the solid virtues of humility, love of your neighbor, patience and conformity to the will of God. I want to see in you a grandeur, an elevation, and a firmness of soul, and to teach you to seek and find your consolation in God."
The princess became all that her wise director wished her to be; and the constant practice of the fundamental Christian virtues soon led her to aim at a still more perfect life. Even her mother for a long time opposed her design. Her friends ridiculed her for wanting to lead what they called a "useless" life. Sensitive to this reproach, so constantly made by people who themselves do nothing at all, she begged the learned Jesuit to furnish her with weapons to repel it. Her request called forth the following excellent reply, which may be read with especial profit just now, when so much is said about the uselessness of nuns: